Sarah Reid simply refused to indulge in a pity party at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Sure, she came agonizingly close to realizing her dream of competing for Canada on the ultimate stage in Whistler. And sure, she had to settle for the opportunity to forerun the track instead of actually racing before a television audience of millions around the world.

But wallowing in what could have been wasn’t about to change her fate.

So she set out to soak up every second of the experience with an eye to preparing for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

“I had a blast,” Reid says. “We stayed the month of February at the village in Whistler, and I got to cheer on my own team, see everyone do so well and feel the energy.

“I got to see how the Games worked without being in them yet.”

Call it a dress rehearsal for greater things to come.

“In hindsight, now that experience is over, I’m so glad that’s what I got to do,” she says. “Because for a first Olympic Games, for it to be at home, I don’t know if I would have been ready for that at that point.”

So often, even the most painful of experiences makes sense when viewed through the rear-view mirror with help from the salve of time.

For Reid, the prospect of competing at the Sochi Games is hardly a fantasy. In fact, the 25-year-old has already hit the Olympic qualifying criteria for the 2012/13 World Cup skeleton season.

With a gold and two silvers to her credit, Reid simply needs one top-six finish next season to book passage to Russia.

“I am so, so happy for Sarah,” says teammate Mellisa Hollingsworth, the two-time World Cup overall champion. “She has worked so hard for such a long time, and she is such a great teammate.

“None of this has come overnight.”

Indeed. Reid’s athletic career actually started two decades ago as a ballet dancer in the basement of Calgary’s Jubilee Auditorium. At 15, she decided to take on a new challenge and called Canada Olympic Park to arrange a tryout for competitive bobsled.

After a couple of weeks of trying to heave a massive sled down the track, the lithe ballerina listened to the advice of her coaches and switched over to skeleton.

Plunging head first down a canyon of ice might terrify some. But Reid, like so many teenagers, had yet to even consider anything as practical as her own mortality.

“I’m lucky that I started young, because I have often thought If I tried it now that I probably wouldn’t have pursued it,” says the National Sport School product. “I think I’ve probably become a little more scared as time has gone on.

“But when I was young, I had no idea what could go wrong. I didn’t know. I just liked the speed of it. I loved it right off the bat.”

Some rookie skeleton racers tell stories of carnage on the track in their first year or so. But Reid proved a different case entirely.

“It took me three years to have my first crash,” she says. “I was little. I just kind of laid there and I didn’t do anything.

“I think it’s when you learn to steer, you steer the wrong way, and that’s when you crash.”

The first crash came on the Calgary track just 15 minutes from where Reid grew up in Crescent Heights near the Memorial Drive stairs.

In truth, the incident proved more of a relief than anything.

“It doesn’t hurt like you think it would,” she says. “It burns a little, but you get back on and it’s not a big deal.

“So it was kind of nice to get that one out of the way.”

With the Olympic qualifying criteria out of the way — at least until next fall — Reid simply wants to keep learning and building for the rest of the season.

At the Christmas break, she is ranked second in the world.

“I’ve worked really hard for a really long time to get to this point,” she says. “In years past, I’ve had some of the equation but not all of it. Like last year, I had some races where the driving was there but maybe the push wasn’t 100 per cent. And then in some races, I maybe had the push but the driving wasn’t there.

“This year, I’ve been able to get my consistency down and have good races and good driving come together on race day the way they should. It’s definitely been exciting to have things work out in my favour.”

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